Folks,

Why would Kenya be involved in this kind of mess? Who is behind this?

Whats up? Kenya Government should investigate. This is worrisome.

Judy Miriga
Diaspora Spokesperson
Executive Director
Confederation Council Foundation for Africa Inc.,
USA
http://socioeconomicforum50.blogspot.com

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Group accuses Kenya of fueling Somali conflict

A new report has accused the Kenyan government and African Union (AU)…

By Agencies

A new report has accused the Kenyan government and African Union (AU) forces of engaging of facilitating ‘illegal’ activities relating to decades long conflict in the lawless Somalia.

The latest report by Human Rights Watch accuses Kenyan government officials of directly co-operating with Somalia government military recruiters who conducted “a massive drive” in the Dadaab refugee camps last year, the report says. The report says the recruitment aided by Kenyan authorities was carried out under “false pretences”. It cites numerous sources who say the recruiters lied to potential conscripts about payments and told teenagers to falsely state they were adults in order for them to join government forces. The new report says the role of Kenya in recruiting Dadaab residents to fight inside Somalia violates humanitarian principles and refugee law on which they are based.

The rights group calls on the Kenyan government to acknowledge that the recruitment effort was “unlawful.” The African Union Mission in Somalia, made up of 5,300 Ugandan and Burundian troops, has conducted “numerous mortar attacks against enemy forces in densely populated areas of Mogadishu without regard for the civilian population, causing a high loss of civilian life and property,” the report says. And according to the report, the laws of war prohibit attacks that are indiscriminate. The report points out that in launching their own mortar shells from civilian areas, Islamist insurgents appear to be encouraging indiscriminate counter-attacks that “would kill civilians and thereby generate useful propaganda.” Human Rights Watch urges the US government to stop supplying mortars and shells to the Transitional Federal Government until the TFG respects the laws of war.

The report further suggests that Washington, the United Nations and African Union must stop turning a blind eye to their allies’ abuses on the ground. By strongly supporting the TFG, these outside interests often play a “counter-productive” role in Somalia, Human Rights Watch observes. Many analysts find it “simplistic” to base policy on the view that the TFG represents a real chance at peace and good governance for Somalia, while al-Shabaab is the potential leading edge of international terrorism in the region,” the report states. “The TFG remains a weak faction,” Human Rights Watch observes. And while some al-Shabaab leaders do have ties to al-Qaeda, the Islamist insurgency in Somalia is “far from a monolithic tool of Osama bin Laden.” This came after reports that the UU-backed TFG in Somalia and its Kenyan allies have recruited hundreds of Somali refugees, including children, to fight in a war against al-Shabab, an Islamist militia linked to al-Qaeda, according to former recruits, their relatives and community leaders. Many of the recruits were taken from the sprawling Dadaab refugee camps in northeastern Kenya, which borders Somalia.

Somali government recruiters and Kenyan soldiers came to the camps late last year, promising refugees as much as $600 a month to join a force advertised as supported by the United Nations or the United States, the former recruits and their families said. Across this region, children and young men are reportedly vanishing as all sides in Somalia’s conflict continue to recruit desperate refugees to fight in a remote battleground in the global war on terrorism from which they fled, community leaders say. It is unclear whether recruiting by the governments of Kenya and Somalia is really ongoing. However, according to reports, their military officers continue to train refugees at a heavily guarded base near the northern Kenyan town of Isiolo as the Somali government prepares for a long-planned offensive against the Shabab. A second camp is in Manyani, a training station for the Kenya Wildlife Service in southern Kenya, according to former recruits, relatives, community leaders and UN investigators. The Kenyan government has acknowledged that it is helping train police officers for Somalia’s weak interim government but said that the recruits were flown in from Mogadishu.

But another recent UN report on Somalia early this year insisted that recruitment of refugees, including underage youths, for military training was going on. Kenya’s training program, the report said, is a violation of a UN arms embargo, which requires nations to get permission from the UN Security Council before assisting Somalia’s security efforts.